


Priorities change

by GlowwormiK



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 08:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12553444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowwormiK/pseuds/GlowwormiK
Summary: When Lotor lands in the castle of lions, who will help him fight melancholy? Written as a giveaway request by@lotornetwork.





	Priorities change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [party-with-books.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=party-with-books.tumblr.com).



The Voltron team turns out to be a lot of disappointment. Hardly a surprise - ever since his wretched father's awakening nothing went well for Lotor, and those people are simply one more step on a ladder of many sorrows, but nevertheless. Every single of them is annoying in their own way. Well, everyone except for one.

Lotor hardly notices her at first. He is too overwhelmed during his first days in the castle of lions, his head spinning, far from being in shape for proper people analysis. The treason of his friends, the escape, the death race against his almighty father, almost a defeat – and then an idea that struck him like lightning and led him to the most unexpected doors. He only realizes how tired he was when he falls onto the bed in the tiny room they gave him – a cell, honestly – and feels like his body would never move again. And then those long days of interrogations, while his head rings and his shoulder aches, swollen almost two times its usual size. They didn't chain him to the wall, heroes aren't supposed to do that, but otherwise they are hardly better than his parents. They leave him no time to sleep, coming one after another and asking the same questions. The aggressive one, the champion, the altean, then the champion again... They give up eventually, and let him stay. Lotor doesn't really know why. Probably because they saw how useless he was, beaten, lost everything and everyone.

After they finished dragging him out of his room for interrogations, Lotor stops going outside at all. He lies on his bed for days. It is as if the whole tension of those last months vanished and left him spineless, crawling like a slug. Someone comes in and brings food – one of the earthlings, Lotor has trouble telling them apart, but eating seems like too much work. The person with food tries talking to him, blabbering some nonsense that was supposed to reassure, but Lotor just turns back towards the wall and the person leaves.  
Lotor doesn't quite sleep, but he isn't awake, either. He spends time in a weird slumber, a space between reality and dream. He sees Zarkon, his eyes still with pupils, and the Olkarian old woman, he first alien he saw outside the gladiator arenas, and others, whose names he thought he had long forgotten. He sees his friends, or those he thought were his friends. Their faces appear in front of his eyes, hovering over one another, and then deforming, melting into each other and then the witches face emerges on top of them all, followed by father's hauhty grimace. They sure have long hands, his masters. They can find puppets as many times as it takes. Obedient puppets who play their roles so perfectly. Marionettes that only wait for the second to bite his hand. Bitter tears burn Lotor's eyes, until the dream changes again, turning in an endless blizzard of nightmares.  
„Is he really that important to you? After all he did?“  
Lotor struggles to open his eyes. He isn't alone. She came in who knows how much time ago and is now sitting on a stool, looking at him directly. Her huge round glasses reflect the dim light, shining like silver and making her eyes invisible. Pidge, the Green Paladin. Lotor tries to remember what he knew about her, but he fails. What are her buttons? What does she like? How he can affect her? His head is still too heavy, thoughts lazy like wormhog's tail, so he just gives up.  
„What do you want?“ he asks, and his voice seemed unfamiliarly hoarse even to him. She pokes her glasses in the middle rim, making the reflection shift a little.  
„You're pathetic!“ she says.  
„What do you even understand...“ Lotor sighs, closing eyes again. „Leave me alone.“  
„You are a grown man,“ she goes on, „get up and get over him. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, lying here like a mess, crying over your father's lack of affection?“  
Anger explodes like hot lava in his chest.  
„This is not about my father!“ he roars, jumping on his bed. „How dare you think that I was crying over him!“  
Anger is still throbbing in his temples when he sees her smile.  
„Told them you were fine,“ she says. „You just needed motivation.“  
Lotor opens his mouth to scold her and closed it back.  
„Why did you come?“  
It is a bad question, but can't think of anything better to say.  
„Why did you cry?“ she parries.  
„Well definitely not about my father!“ Lotor exclaims, still angry at her. „I was not planning on pleasing him anyway!“  
„What were you planning then?“  
Now that his mind is clear, the old fear comes back. They have sent her here. They had a plan. Is she here to extract information from him the nice way? What should he do? He has no assets, no allies to help him and no power to counter her attack. Play dead seems his only option.  
„Nothing,“ he says, lying back down. „What can I ever plan that goes into fulfillment?“  
Lotor utters a carefully calculated sigh, heavy enough to show his despair, but not too much to give out his act.  
„Liar!“ she says. „You are a good actor, but you forget one thing. We know you were planning something. You tried steal the telludav from your own people. There is now way you would have done it just for fun.“  
She's good, Lotor thinks, careful not to let his face show anything. But not as good as she thinks she is.  
„My father is an immortal monster with ten thousand years of battle experience. Do you seriously think I could believe that you guys put him to bed for any significant period of time? I had to use the short moments of freedom to secure my life in the future, when my father will return to rule.“  
This should do the job. If she believs him now, he might even try to pull some bits of information from her in return.  
„Liar,“ she says again. „You had enough time and security to show off at the arena.“  
How did she know? Do they have spies in the army? The witch had told him about this Thace situation, but are there more? His face must have shown some of his shock, because she goes on.  
„I built a system I like to call „galra finder“ and we can listen to your communications. I had no idea your kind blabbers so much nonsense in official channels.“  
What is she... a galra finder? Lotor sits down on the bed and turns on the lights.  
Now that he can see clearly, Lotor examins his visitor closely. Really small, even for the earthlings. Messy, short hair. No feminine roundings. Lotor is unsure how earth females are supposed to look like, but no wonder Ezor reported that everyone mistook her for a boy at first. She grimaced as the light burnt her eyes. Not much of a stoic.  
„Why are you telling me that?“ Lotor asks in disbelief. She grins broadly (what a charming smile...)  
„Well, I figured I should give you some motivation to share with me. And since I am the author of the galra finder, I can choose to tell or not tell about it to anyone. So now it is your turn to speak up. What did you plan to do with the second comet?“  
Lotor sighs.  
„I planned to build ships from it, ones that could be an adversary both to my my father's armies and to Voltron. But it really doesn't matter anymore. My friends turned out to be spies that my father sent after me and when I figured one of them out, they tried to give me to the empire. They also managed to hold on to the second existing ship, so there is no sense in discussing it.”  
Driven by some unclear instinct, Lotor doesn't mention the piece of ore that is still resting in the belly of his jet. She doesn't pay any attention to it anyway.  
“What do you mean your friends were sent by your father?” she gasps.  
How sweet. But does she really care or is it just an act? Well, there is no point in hiding it anyway.  
“The witch has been looking through Narti's eyes. I killed her.”  
She looks unsure.  
“Narti, the one with lizard tail and the cat. You fought her when you destroyed my telludav piece. And then the others, Acxa, Ezor and Zethrid, decided that the game became too dangerous for them, knocked me out and tried to give me out to my father to save their own lives. If you listen to our communications, you must know that I am the enemy of the empire and will be killed on sight.”  
Pidge nods, understanding.  
“I guess I would lie on the bed crying, too, if I got betrayed like that.”  
“I! am not! Crying!” Lotor yells. “I was merely thinking things over and building a new plan!”  
So much for the harmless broken man act, he realizes. She doesn't believe it anyway, so he doesn't dwell on the though for too long.  
“Maybe you'll fell better if I show you around the castle? My brother Matt found it very exciting.”  
“Well, I am sure your earthling brother Matt found it exciting. I have seen better feats of technology.”  
Now it is her turn to get angry.  
“I'll have you know that my brother is a space pilot, and he escaped your father's prison, and he built a frequency code into his own gravestone to help me find him! He is the smartest and bravest guy there is, and don't you dare say that you are somehow better than he!”  
He cheeks grow pink with anger, and somehow it makes her prettier and scarier at the same time. Her lion destroyed a battle cruiser by shooting roots at it, he remembers now.  
“Well, I am sure your brother is a very talented young man,” he says apologetically. “What I meant is that I I saw many spaceships and I don't think an altean one is so much different from what I saw. I would, however, be very interested in seeing your galra finder.”  
Silly girl beams up. How can she be so careless? Lotor feels almost guilty for using her like that. He will find out everything there is to know about her and then he'll just leave, and use this information for his benefit. He will find out now and leave tomorrow.  
He doesn't leave tomorrow. He doesn't leave the next day or next week. She shows him the galra finder, and he suggests additions to it, and they implement those additions only to find out that there is more to improve. They grow really close at an alarming speed. Very soon, Lotor finds out that he nearly abandoned his own room and settled in hers. Not that he has much choice: everyone else tries to freeze him with their glares, especially the brother Matt and another earthling, Hunk. Turns out Pidge used to involve them into her research more, and now there is no place for them left. Well, losers were always jealous. If there is one room in the castle that interests him, he will claim it his own.  
But it is not her rooms that he needed, he realizes pretty soon. When she flies away on a mission, Lotor wanders around her quarters like a lost puppy, waiting for her steps in the hallway. Really? That tiny excuse of a sentient being? As a prince, Lotor needed only to wink an eye and most gorgeous women in the empire would stand in queue to his bed. And then this girl? That is inacceptable.  
Lotor tries to distance himself. He gets out of Pidge's room and tries to take part in Voltron's meetings. He wanders through the galra military channels in search for clues. He contacts his agents from before. It's not that it doesn't work, it does. The Voltron team, except for the Blades, are sensible beings. They hate and despise him, but they can tell a good plan from a bad one, so eventually they start accepting his ideas. As long as Voltron stands, his father's victory is not given, and this thought really lightens his mood.  
It is just that nothing really makes sense without Pidge any more. She grows sad and distant, too, then starts avoiding him in return. It isn't until after another fight that he understands.  
Zarkon attacks the usual way - unexpectedly and without mercy. Haggar surrounds the castle with a quintessence field, disabling all the systems. Voltron manages to escape, but Lotor's Sincline ship doesn't, and he has to watch helplessly as five lions struggle in battle against galra fleets. The castle lost any connection with Voltron except for visual, and Lotor cannot even help them with advice. Nothing he and Coran try works, and a heavy cloak of guilt and fear starts pushing him towards the floor, clogging his mind. The green lion skyrockets through the field, but Lotor can't even force himself to watch her consistently, because he is too afraid.  
“They will come back, you just have to believe it. And stand ready to help anytime they might ask you for it.”  
It is Coran. Lotor looks at him and it seems like he saw the man for the first time. A sad, weak servant, accompanying Alfor everywhere, his father told him. Zarkon's voice rings in his head: I had no idea why he would even keep such a useless being around, let alone listen to his opinions. You were so wrong, Lotor thinks. Why are you so wrong about so many things? And when will I finally stop following your opinions?  
“Thank you, Coran,” he manages to squeeze out of himself, before the communication panel goes alive again.  
“Coran, open the wormhole!” Allura's voice rings through the hall. “We need to go!”  
They both rush to their posts and it is only after the jump that they can see the paladins.  
She stands there, holding her helmet on her elbow, her smile as bright as the sun. The wave of relief upon seeing her unharmed is so strong that Lotor's knees almost give in. She is talking to Shiro, but then she turns her head, meets Lotor's gaze and smiles directly at him. She looks so beautiful right now, so confident, so happy. A true paladin, powerful and merciful at the same time. So smart. So versatile. So perfect. Lotor blinks the unwanted water from his eyes and heads off toward her. Never ever will he ignore her anymore. He can not control when they die, but if he has anything to say about it, he will make sure that she lives as long and as happy as possible.


End file.
